Party of Surprises
by signelchan
Summary: As hesitant as she is to accept the invitation Shuichi gives her to a party, Kyoko decides to attend because there's no way that it can be that bad...until it ends up managing to go worse than she could ever expect it to. [non-despair AU]


**tw: assault, I suppose? and babies.**

The first rule of the detective agency was that people were not supposed to enter offices without explicit permission; the second rule was that, if granted entrance to an office, nothing was supposed to be touched unless allowed to do so. Someone had decided they were going to break both of those rules that day, and so when Kyoko went back to her corner office after checking the scene of her current homicide investigation to find all of her case files scattered on the floor, she was unamused for many reasons. This wasn't the first time that week this had happened to her, and as much as she wanted to say that it was because someone was upset with her working on her particular case, she knew that wasn't the truth of the matter at all.

She'd taken the job at that agency solely because she needed somewhere new to work during a time of transition in her life, as her husband assumed leadership at the school they'd gone to as students, and a lot of her fellow detectives had been annoyed with her coming in already in a position of superiority. Not everyone she worked with was nasty about that, but the majority of her coworkers tried to make her regret joining their agency, even though she took on the gory, violent cases that most of them tried to stay away from. However, they also knew that putting her files on the floor was particularly obnoxious for her, especially in recent weeks, because she couldn't simply bend down and pick them back up.

Bracing herself with one hand on her desk, Kyoko got down as close to the floor as she could before trying to pick up the files, but so many of them were on the floor that she needed both hands, and the moment she let go of her desk she felt herself feeling unsteady in her squatted position. Grabbing the desk once more, she resigned herself to the fact that she'd have to get back up and come down again and started grabbing as many files as she could. The sound of her door opening behind her caught her attention (as it broke the first rule she'd been taught of the office), but it was the footsteps coming to right beside her that bothered her more. "I don't mean to intrude, but I don't know if you being down there like that is exactly the best idea," the man who'd entered said, sounding a bit nervous to be talking to her. "Stand up, I can help you pick things up."

She hesitated in responding, but carefully brought herself back to her feet with about half of her files in her hand. "Go for it," she told him, heading for her desk chair to reorganize everything that she'd collected. "I wasn't expecting any kind of help around here, so thank you, Saihara."

In the time it had taken her to get to her chair by going around the desk, he'd already bent down and picked everything up, setting it on the corner of her desk for her to organize when she was finished. "It's no problem, I'm just doing what I can to make your job easier," he replied, averting his eyes so she couldn't possibly make eye contact with him. "I can't say that _I_ know what it's like to be in your situation, but I do know what it's like to be around someone who is, so…"

"You're pitying me because you think I need help, hm?" Cue him sputtering as he explained that he wasn't pitying her at all, and the way he seemed so flustered amused Kyoko as she continued working on her files. "No, don't worry, I understand what you meant to say. I do appreciate you keeping an eye on me. If I'd decided to try picking all the files up at once I would have needed more help than what you gave."

"I just saw you down like you were and I knew that you wouldn't have it easy if you got stuck, so I came to help. It felt right to me." He shuffled away from her a couple inches, before properly facing her for the first time, a small smile on his face. "I couldn't help but think about what I would've done if I were home and I saw my wife in that sort of position, you know? Of course, she'd take a lot more to get back up than you would, but still."

Setting the now-reorganized half of the files aside, Kyoko found herself distracted by the curve of her stomach as she reached to grab the other half. That was what the real problem was at the moment, the fact that she was over six months pregnant and still working like nothing had changed at all, and all of the men she worked with wanted to see her struggle rather than succeed. That was why she was fine with this one man, Shuichi Saihara, coming in and helping her out when he could—she knew that he meant no harm and wanted to protect her and the life within her. "Oh, I doubt she'd try getting down that low at this point. I shouldn't have done that myself and you've known about your child longer than we've known about ours."

"That's true, but you don't know Kaede. Why, I went home the other day to her trying to pick something up with her foot, but she couldn't lift it high enough or bend down low enough to grab it." He laughed at the memory, while Kyoko stared at him for a moment in horror before finally getting the rest of the files and beginning work on them. As he awkwardly collected himself, she was organizing everything as it should have been, and he didn't say another word until she was finished and had both hands resting in front of her. "I was actually thinking, it would be good for you and her to properly meet, instead of you just hearing stories from me about her."

"I'm not interested in meeting anyone right now, but thank you for the consideration." Her mind was focused on what she had left to do for the day before she could head home, which was document the crime scene she'd gone to look at and lock down her office so the same scene didn't happen in the morning. "It's a busy time in my life, and I'm sure it's just as busy in yours."

Nodding, Shuichi stepped back a bit more, before tilting his head to one side, scratching right behind his ear. "It is, definitely, but there's a reason I bring this up. One of our friends is hosting a get-together to celebrate all these changes in our lives and I was told to invite anyone I'd like to see there. You and your husband would be my guests if you were interested in attending, it wouldn't be much more than a meal or something like that."

"I've already said I'm not interested, now please drop the subject." He apologized for what he'd said and wished her a good day, before leaving the office without another word. Kyoko sighed once she heard the door close, leaning her head back against her chair and setting one of her hands on top of her stomach. She wasn't stupid, and she knew that there was more to what he'd just suggested than a simple meal, and that was what disinterested her more than anything. If it really were just a time to meet his wife and some of their friends, perhaps she would have considered it, but she knew too much about how people masked their intentions with the tone of their voice to trust what he was saying.

At the same time, if he was trying to lie to her, of all people, there had to be some good reason for it after he'd stepped in to show her such kindness. That lingered on her mind for the rest of her time at the office, and when she went to leave she walked down to where he worked but saw his light off and door closed, preventing her from asking any follow-up questions. When she got home she brought it up with her husband, seeing if he had any ideas as to how to proceed, but all Makoto seemed to get focused on was the fact that they'd been invited to a party where they'd meet someone who was going to have a child close enough in age to theirs to allow them to be immediate friends.

"I don't know if we should go or not," he said, "and I'm going to let that one be up to you. But really, what's the worst it could be? Your coworker wouldn't mean to cause you any harm, would he?"

"Out of all of them, I think Shuichi would be least likely to do so," she admitted. There was no way that invitation had been malicious, and she was jumping to over-analyzing his behavior because of the hostility everyone else they worked with would have shown her. "I suppose I can get the details for this celebration from him the next time we cross paths, perhaps going and meeting his wife would be best for us after all."

"We could meet her, and that would mean we could set up playdates for the kids once they're big enough!" Just talking about his child was enough to get Makoto to sound cheerful, and hearing him like that was a motivator for Kyoko to do what was needed to keep him so happy during such a stressful time. Deep down she might not have wanted to find out the truth of the invitation, but on the surface she wasn't going to let that show, she was going to remain stoic and impossible to read. Makoto might have said she got to make the decision, but he knew from the moment he'd said that that she'd make it based on how he presented his feelings towards the topic.

But, before fully committing to the idea of going, Kyoko had one last remark to make: "If anything bad happens while we're there, whether it be someone hurting you, me, or our child, or the whole thing being a trap to get us to do something we have no interest in, I am blaming you for it."

"That's fair, but if this is the only coworker that's nice to you inviting us, why would anything like that happen?"

* * *

Kyoko had been right, the promised get-together was actually a trap that she wanted no part of, but it wasn't just a trap for her and Makoto to stumble into; Shuichi was completely and utterly surprised to learn that the get-together he'd been told about and encouraged to invite his fellow detective to wasn't as advertised. He'd been the one to bring them to it, meeting at the office before all riding to the training dojo where it was being held together, and their first glimpse at the truth came when there was someone dressed in a tiger kigurumi, someone that Shuichi recognized without needing to take a second glance. "I wasn't told that Tenko was going to be here," he said to his companions, "but it makes sense that she would be. This is where she does her martial arts, it's where we agreed to have our lunch."

"What's with the outfit?" Kyoko asked, sounding unamused as she was fairly certain she could guess what was up with it on her own. "Did you fail to tell us part of today's plans?"

"Not at all, I was told it's just a nice lunch with some friends, and that you in specific were invited because of…well, because you're my newest coworker and you're having a baby at around the same time as the rest of them." Shuichi parked their vehicle around the side of the building and together they walked up to the front, but by the time they got there Tenko was gone. "Well, maybe she was leaving for the day. Let's just go inside, I'm sure you'd rather not be walking too much more, right Kyoko?"

"The walking doesn't bother me too much, but thank you for the concern." Glancing towards Makoto as if he would think about what they'd seen and regret wanting to be there, Kyoko felt slightly betrayed to see that he looked eager to get inside. She didn't say anything to him about it, although she did let herself slow down to let the men take the lead into the building, her intentionally letting her walk take on more of a pronounced sway, just to hang behind and let them scout the place out first.

When they disappeared through the door without her, she was still coming up the front stairs, and the thought to turn around and walk somewhere that wasn't there crossed her mind but she resisted. They were expecting her to be there, she couldn't disappear without reason (and any reason she could come up with would be soundly called out by the other detective that was there). As she got to the door, she watched it open in front of her and a different, small person wearing a tiger kigurumi, this one pure white, was standing there looking up at her. "You're not dressed up," she remarked, looking at Kyoko with bored eyes. "Just like Shuichi and that guy he brought with him. Didn't you all get that note?"

"There's no need to ask me in such a tone," Kyoko replied, trying to make sense of how this woman could look so bored but seem so passionate about what she was talking about. "I was unaware there was any kind of dress code for this get-together, all Saihara told me was that it's supposed to be a lunch and I was invited as his guest."

The woman scoffed, before pulling the door open. "Figures that Shuichi wasn't even told the truth of the party, he would've had so much fun if he'd known he could dress up." She stepped aside as she opened the door, so that Kyoko could walk in to see the nightmare that she'd agreed to attend. The dojo was nicely decorated, with a lot of blue balloons with the occasional pink one scattered among them, and there was a table set up in the middle with quite a few metal chairs around it. That all seemed to fit what Shuichi had told her when she'd been invited, and the ladies in the kigurumis might have been forgivable if every other person there wasn't also dressed up.

In fact, it seemed that she, Makoto, and Shuichi were the only people there who hadn't come in in some sort of costume, and based on how she couldn't see either of them anymore she wasn't sure if that was going to remain the truth. "Hey, you made it!" a woman called from over where the one wearing the orange tiger kigurumi was standing, and by the time that Kyoko had registered that the greeting was aimed at her, the two ladies had come to standing in front of her, the tiger pulling her hood down and exposing her grinning smile while the other held out her hands in an attempt to grab Kyoko's. "I've heard _so_ much about you from Shuichi, he really admires you and all the work you've done!"

"I take it you're Kaede?" Allowing her gloved hands to be grabbed, Kyoko watched the woman nod eagerly before she broke out into introducing herself in rambling sentences. It was something she listened to for a moment, before she cut her off with, "I was fine with coming to meet you, but no one told me I had to dress up for it. What's with the costumes?"

"I completely forgot to let Shuichi know the plans changed to be a costume party before he invited you, and when he said you were coming I forgot to say it to him then too. I'm sure you know how it can be, pregnancy brain and all." Kaede was beaming, and when she closed her eyes due to how big her smile was getting Kyoko took the moment to glance at the princess-looking costume that she was wearing, how it (and the crown attached to it, for some reason) framed the stomach that was definitely bigger than her own.

This had consequences, as the tiger next to her was watching the entire time. "Gross, you're married aren't you, and yet you're ogling my dear friend when she can't stop you! Eyes back on her face, not her chest!" The woman (Tenko, that was the name that Shuichi had used to talk about her before) sounded angry, almost as if she hadn't actually looked at Kyoko for herself and seen that the glances were not meant to be taken badly, and were for more of a comparison than anything. "I can't believe that someone would do that, and to a person who doesn't deserve that kind of treatment! You're almost as bad as some of those degenerate males hanging around here!"

"Oh hush, she's not ogling me, she's probably comparing how big I am to how big she is," Kaede corrected, opening her eyes and looking down at her own stomach, before letting go of Kyoko's hands to adjust how the crown she had fastened to it was sitting. "I think that Shuichi told me there's like a month between us?"

"That would be correct, yes." Without expecting an apology from Tenko nor getting one, Kyoko put her focus on Kaede's face, specifically how she was wearing an ornate crown on her head compared to the plain one on her stomach. "You look like you're dressing up for Halloween, not for a lunch get-together. Will you now explain the _why_ for the costumes?"

Still fiddling with the lower crown, Kaede did as she had been asked. "It wasn't my idea, but one of the ladies that's here today wanted to do a costume party that let us dress up our cute little bumps, because it's not every day that you get to do that with all your closest friends!" She laughed, while Kyoko tried her best not to excuse herself from the event and leave due to how much she despised the concept. "I'm a queen, and my belly's got to wear a crown because my perfect little prince can't do it himself yet."

Tenko pretended to gag at something that Kaede had said, while Kyoko had to act like she thought the idea was cute, unless she wanted to upset the woman. "I suppose that makes sense," she said, trying to sound convincing but knowing that she most likely sounded contrived and flat. "Shuichi had mentioned to me before that you were expecting a boy, but I wonder if he ever told you that Makoto and I are expecting the same."

"He did, that's a huge part of why I wanted to get to meet you at our party! Between all of us here, there's going to be at least three little boys running around in the near future and I thought it would be great if we could, like, get them to be friends or something!" Kaede finally stopped messing with her crown and had clasped her hands together in her excitement. "Well, at least ours can be friends, I'm not exactly sure how much we're going to want them to meet…the other one."

"There's a lot to unpack with what you said." Distracted by how Tenko was still gagging, complete with miming throwing up, Kyoko was trying her best to make sense of the rapid-fire information Kaede had just thrown at her, but there were too many things to make note of and follow up on. "I suppose the most important part would be that you said 'at least', as if you don't have a solid number."

Nodding, Kaede explained her choice of wording with a smile. "I wish I could say with certainty how many boys there are going to be, but we just don't know yet. I know that there's someone here who hopes they're all boys, but then there's," she motioned her head towards Tenko, who stopped gagging, "this one here, who thinks that one boy's enough and the fact that there's so many is horrible, so she wants all the rest to be girls."

"All the rest," Kyoko repeated, not sure if she wanted to know why that was what had been said. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Is someone expecting multiples and couldn't get a good read on them?"

"No way, that'd be crazy if it were true though! You'll see why I said what I said soon enough, don't worry." Turning to see if anyone else was around, Kaede seemed to bounce a tiny bit in excitement as she saw someone coming out backwards through a doorway, their hands motioning for something to follow them. She started in that direction and Kyoko followed her, not knowing what else to do. As they left Tenko behind, they both heard her call after them to not take too long with what they were doing, but Kyoko had no idea why that needed to be said, as if there was going to actually be anything else happening that day.

As far as she knew, they were all going to sit around wearing silly costumes for a while and then go their separate ways, and that was going to be the end of things. The people coming out of the side room didn't seem to say anything as they passed by them to go inside the room for themselves, Kaede leading the way without explaining even slightly as to why they were going in there. Once they were both inside, the door was shut by the people who'd just left and the ladies faced each other, Kaede's eyes shining as they met Kyoko's. "I don't typically blindly follow someone somewhere," Kyoko said, trying to make it clear that her behavior in that moment was atypical. "I do believe I deserve an explanation."

"Right, so, I've got to give you a costume to wear while you're here, but don't worry, I totally get that you weren't planning on wearing one and probably don't want to actually wear one, so I'm just going to give you something simple." Winking before she began moving around the small room in search of some costume piece in particular, it took Kaede several minutes to find what she was looking for, but when she came back to standing in front of Kyoko she had a bunch of fake flowers in her hands. "Here, I think this is simple enough, all I'm going to do is pin these in your hair and to your clothes, and then if anyone asks, you're dressed up like a flower bouquet, got it?"

"There's not much of a choice in the matter, is there?" Kyoko's reply wasn't a no, even if it wasn't a yes, but Kaede took it positively and got right to work with her decorating, and soon there were all sorts of flowers covering from head to the bottom of Kyoko's shirt, going all the way around her. Kaede was proud of her work, and although she couldn't see it for herself Kyoko was sure that she looked like a disaster but complaining wouldn't be fit for the moment. She thanked the woman for the work and went to leave the room, but Kaede told her to stay put for just a moment, and went back to searching the room for something else.

This time when she came back, she had a little bag in her hand that she pushed towards Kyoko. "It's a gift, for you showing up and staying this long. You're not the only one here who isn't interested in the costumes, trust me."

"Somehow I doubt that to be true," she replied, refraining from looking in the bag until she was following behind Kaede to leave the room, just in case her reaction to the gift wasn't pretty. It was a simple jewelry box inside the bag, and so opening it to see what was inside would have to wait, but if it were a nice piece of jewelry then perhaps it would make up for some of the inconvenience of being there.

When Kyoko stopped looking in the bag, she was still right behind Kaede but the scene they'd entered had changed from when they'd first left the dojo's main room. There were people at the table now, all of the chairs except two filled up, and the two that were still open had blue balloons tied to their backs. "Ooh, they decorated our seats for us while we were getting you ready!" Kaede exclaimed, pointing towards the table. "Come on, let's not keep them waiting any longer than we already have!"

"Sure thing," Kyoko replied, not doing anything to speed up getting to the table. She was busy looking at everyone that was gathered there. The chairs clearly saved for her and Kaede were right next to each other, with their husbands on the other side of them. Makoto was waving at her, him having been put into another cat kigurumi, while she could see that Shuichi was watching them both approach, wearing a kingly crown on his head and looking like he hadn't put anything else costume-related on aside from it. On Makoto's other side were the tiger ladies, the smaller one between him and Tenko, and next to Shuichi was a man with purple hair darker than her own, wearing a costume so obnoxiously large that he was clearly standing in front of his chair and annoying the woman next to him, whose costume she couldn't see because of the table and how her arms were crossed in front of her.

The final spot at the table was the one she was looking at when she got to her own chair, and as she took her seat the woman who'd been sitting in that last spot stood up, slamming her hands on the edge of the table as she did. "It's about fuckin' time you two got out here," she remarked, her voice angry-sounding but her face wearing a large grin. "Here I was, wondering if you were going to take long enough that even this dumb kid would get tired of waiting and finally decide to vacate my vag, but you disappointed me, thanks."

"We went as fast as we could in there, Miu, sorry about that." Hanging her head and nearly losing her crown in the process, Kaede sounded genuinely apologetic with what she said, before she turned her head slightly to look towards Kyoko. In a whisper, she then said, "I forgot to warn you about Miu when I had the chance, just ignore everything she says and does and you'll be fine."

Heeding that advice would have been a lot easier if it wasn't almost a spectacle to see the scantily-clad woman standing across from them. Kyoko couldn't take her eyes off the woman, trying to get a read on her intentions and how she genuinely felt about them taking so long, but she kept finding herself thinking about how uncomfortable she must have been standing there. She was wearing nothing but a too-tight bikini, with the words _get this thing out of here_ written in some sort of marker on her very swollen, very much full-term stomach, and all Kyoko could think was that the comment the woman had made when they'd sat down might not have been as much of a joke as she'd initially thought.

"So now that all you bitches are here and dressed for the occasion, let's get down to business," Miu continued, finally taking her seat once more and leaning as far in to the table as she could given her physical condition. "I'm glad to see some unfamiliar faces around here, nice to know that some of these half-wits have other friends after all!"

"I think that's a nice thing you just said about us, so thank you?" Makoto did not sound confident at all as he spoke, and based on how he'd reached over and grabbed Kyoko's leg to squeeze as he talked she knew that he was not feigning that fear. "I hadn't met any of you before I got here today, but I think it—"

"Shut up, I'm not interested in talking to _you_," Miu snapped, startling Makoto enough to make him stop talking immediately, not even trying to finish his sentence. "I'm more interested in that sweet piece of ass you brought here with you. You're the detective bitch that solves all those murders, aren't you?"

"I'd prefer not to be referred to in such a way, but yes, that would be me." Kyoko noticed that the woman sitting between Miu and the man in the large costume was shifting in her seat at the topic of conversation, and she took it upon herself to try and get away from Miu's crudeness and address that. "Excuse me, but is everything okay over there? You look like you have something you'd like to say."

The woman blinked back in surprise, realizing that Kyoko was addressing her. "Nope, nothing to say, just really don't want to be here." She was fidgeting, messing with similarly-pinned flowers that she had on her chest, but before anyone had the chance to call out her manner of avoiding talking more she got up, knocking her chair down as she did. As it fell, so did the pink and blue balloons attached to it. "In fact, I'm going home. I didn't ask for any of this when I got here."

"H-hey, come on Maki Roll, you can't just walk out of this cool party like that!" That was the man next to her, first picking her chair back up before chasing her towards the door, where she'd already gotten to despite not moving at more than a brisk walk. "Don't ya wanna stick around and see what kinds of cool things are going to happen here?"

"Not in your dreams, Kaito, especially not with you in that stupid costume. Next time you want to drag me somewhere against my will, don't do it while you're dressed like a dumb cowboy." There was more to their conversation, but it was happening in hushed voices and too close to the door to be heard at the table; whatever was said, it resulted in them coming back to join everyone, Maki looking just as unhappy as she had when she'd tried escaping. "I don't want to be here, but I _guess_ I'm staying because _someone_ won't let me leave."

"Kaede even gave you a cool gift for sticking with this until the end, you can't just walk out and make that worthless!" Thanks to what Kaito said, Kyoko now knew who the other recipient of the gift had been, and she wasn't surprised even slightly to know it. Everyone else seemed at least partially interested in the costuming aspect of the day (including Makoto, when she looked at him and saw how he still had the hood of the kigurumi on), but she and Maki were far from interested in it. That must have been why they were dressed the same way, haphazardly decorated with flowers that made no sense as to why they were wearing them.

People started trying to pretend like there was nothing strange holding them there right then, and small discussions started breaking out between people around the table. Whoever Miu was talking to at any given moment was being yelled at and talked dirty to, but no one seemed to be bothered by her crass behavior. Thankful that she wasn't being targeted for that discussion any longer than she had been, Kyoko found herself talking to Tenko, who seemed to be a lot more at peace sitting there at the table than she had been listening to conversations before. "I don't really know why I agreed to be here," Tenko admitted, looking past Makoto to talk to the person she was actually interested in. "All this baby talk just drives me crazy, it's not like I'm ever going to have a kid of my own so why should I bother? With all these boys too, it's just…I'm not snagging someone's son to teach him Neo-Aikido, that's reserved for girls only!"

"I see," Kyoko replied, not understanding a word of what Tenko said and not particularly caring enough to ask for clarification on some of the specifics. She did notice that there weren't any balloons tied to Tenko's chair, and that seemed to back up the statement she'd made about not having her own children, and the rest of the information she'd been given seemed rather involved in someone's personal biases and issues. "If you aren't having a child, why is it that you're here today?"

"One, it's my dojo and I'm lending it to the others since they're my friends, and two, because I was kind of hoping that someone here would finally spit out what she's having and that I'd know which kid I get to borrow in the future." As she'd given her second reason, Tenko had put on a rather sheepish smile, as if she'd just shared the most devious plan she could have concocted. "But then I found out that she doesn't know yet, and that I'll have to wait until everyone else finds out."

Once again, Kyoko was left trying to figure out how to act interested in the response she'd been given, even though she did not care at all. "I'm going to guess that the one you're upset about not sharing that piece of news is the one that tried storming out of here, in which case it comes as no surprise that she's remaining quiet on the topic. She does not seem like the person to be very invested in this whole thing." While she was talking, Kyoko was glancing over towards that woman on the other side of the table, reading her closed-off body language as still being apprehensive of being where she was. "I am also going to guess that she always acts like this in situations such as this one."

"Maki just doesn't like people most of the time, and while she likes most of the people here, she doesn't like why we're here. Honestly, I think the only people who like why we're here are Kaede, Miu, and…no, just the two of them at this point." Tenko shook her head, her tiger hood falling off as she did. "I know before they changed it to a costume party, more of us were happy to be around but then that changed and none of us really cared. But Maki's been the biggest sourpuss of all, especially when she found out costumes were involved, and that she was supposed to dress up, and that she wasn't allowed to back out for anything. At least everyone else who was turned off by the costume thing when they found out got to uninvite themselves, but she was stuck."

"Why are you acting like she's being so negative just because she didn't want to dress up?" the woman in the white tiger kigurumi asked, looking at Tenko with her completely bored expression prominent on her face. "She's been like this since the day she told all of us about the baby, and no amount of trying to make her see the light with words or magic has done anything to help her."

"I know that's how it is, Himiko, but no one said that our new friend here needed to know that much!" Going back to looking sheepish, Tenko glanced at Kyoko and saw that she was trying to process what was happening and didn't have the right context to make sense of it all. "Himiko here's a mage, she loves using her magic to help, or hurt, people as needed. She's the best mage that any of us have ever met!"

Himiko took a moment before correcting her with, "You mean the only mage you've met."

"That makes you the best, doesn't it? Anyway, she's a mage, she does her magic whenever she thinks we need it, and she's been awfully busy for a lot of the past year trying to get everything handled with her cool spells." Tenko was still looking at Kyoko, who was not buying a word of what was being said now that magic was involved. "Actually, I think the only one you haven't had to do too much to is Kaede, isn't that right?"

"I only used a spell to make her not miserable, that's all I had to do for her. I'm still working on Maki and making that work for her too, but it's hard when she fights off my magic every time I use it." Himiko put her finger to her lips as she thought about other spells she'd supposedly used, and Kyoko braced herself for hearing more positive, helpful things but what came next was unexpected. "My favorite thing I've done is cast that hindrance spell on Miu, to make her suffer as long as we could. She's still suffering, which really shows how much my magic works."

"Hindrance spell, hm?" Kyoko didn't want to dare try looking towards Miu again, but she could easily recall what she'd already seen. "By chance, did it involve a washing machine and shrinking her clothing?"

Shaking her head, Himiko continued looking just as bored as she always had, even though her voice contained more excitement than seemed likely given her demeanor. "No way! I just got so tired of her bragging about how she'd made herself a genius baby that I decided she could carry that genius baby as long as physically possible. She was supposed to have him almost two weeks ago, but nothing's happened yet and it's all thanks to me."

Feeling proud that her initial read on Miu's condition had been correct, Kyoko immediately let that feeling of pride slip away when she realized that the painted message that she'd read must have been said out of desperation. "I've barely met her, but don't you think that's a fairly cruel way to treat her?"'

"Not at all, you don't know how annoying Miu gets when she starts bragging about how amazing she is, or in this case, how amazing her baby she shouldn't be having is." Sharing that information put Himiko into a bit of a bad mood, and she stopped talking, which in turn meant that Tenko's attention was pulled to trying to cheer up her costume partner. Now that she didn't have them to talk to, Kyoko looked at Makoto to see what he was doing since he'd been excluded from the conversation, but he seemed invested in watching what was going on with the people on the other side of the table.

"You've been missing it by talking to them," he said, voice low to not let anyone else know what he'd been doing. "They're getting really heated about something, but it's all so quiet that I don't know what they're saying and I'm not as good at reading body language as you are, so I'm kind of lost."

Kyoko nodded, understanding that he was telling her to look for herself and figure things out like the master detective she was, but she knew that he was looking in the direction of where Miu was, and the last thing she needed right then was for them to lock eyes and create more conversation. "I'll see what I can do," she told him, shifting her gaze towards the group at the other side of the table, catching the action right as someone's hands found themselves shoving towards Miu, trying to keep her away with her own wandering hands. Kyoko's eyebrows raised at the sight, but she said nothing, figuring that there would be more that followed that would explain what was going on.

That assumption was correct, but it came at the cost of the next action being another set of hands getting into the mix, this one a pair of fists taking swings at Miu's face to get her to back off. As Kyoko, Makoto, and who knew who else were watching, both of those fists made contact with their target, sending Miu backwards at the force of the dual blows. "I wasn't aware you were stupid enough to hit a woman, Momota," she spat as she drew her hands back to touch her face, checking the spots where she'd been hit for the feel of blood. "Especially a woman like myself. You want to fight, is that what this is?"

Kaito also drew his hands back, still curled into fists that were nearly shaking in anticipation for what was to come. "I don't want to fight, I want you to keep your hands off Maki Roll, that's all! She was bein' nice and not hitting you herself, so I jumped in to get it done!"

"I didn't want to hit her because I don't want to be responsible for—or have that happen, I suppose." Whatever it was that Maki was going to say, she dropped it the second she saw Miu's fist go flying in front of her, meeting Kaito's face just like his fists had met hers moments before. He jumped up from where he was sitting, despite Maki trying to keep him down as best as she could, and went to go meet Miu face-to-face, her having stood up as well looking proud of what she'd done.

There was plenty of time for anyone to jump in and put a stop to things before they escalated further, but everyone was either shocked at what they were watching, wasn't going to get involved because of the chance of bodily harm, or was Tenko, cheering for Miu to kick some ass and make a boy bleed. The punches started almost immediately once they'd gotten close enough to start making body blows, both of them arguing with the other as to why they were fighting in the first place; the only person outside of them to say anything (aside from Tenko and her loud cheers) was Maki, who was shaking her head at them grumbling about how obnoxious their behavior was.

Their fight stopped as quickly as it started, with them stepping back from each other. Kaito had gotten a couple solid hits to his face, and there was blood dripping from his brow line down his cheek, which he was ignoring in favor of checking his arms for the actual bite marks that Miu had somehow managed to get on them. She was in a much worse state than he was, having stumbled back to her chair with one hand over an eye and the other covering half of the message on her stomach, her bottom lip being bit down on and her visible eye showing equal parts fear and arousal.

"I'm surprised you weren't scared about assaulting me in front of everyone," she remarked, letting her other hand fall to show that she had been covering a quickly-blackening eye. "Not like I care that you were beating up on me, this whole situation's got me turned on and you touching me like that's got me so fucking wet right now, come back and do it again why don't you?"

"Beating up a pregnant woman isn't really my thing, sorry." Noticing the blood that had now fallen onto the head of his costume, Kaito was pressing on his brow wound to try and stop it from dripping further. "Like I was telling you, I only did it 'cause Maki Roll wasn't doing it herself and I wasn't gonna let you touch her like you were."

"Oh, so instead you make me want to have someone touch me? I see how it is." After every sentence Miu was going back to biting her lip, the expression of arousal in her eyes easy for anyone to pick up on. She was kicking a leg out towards Maki's chair, trying to spread her legs for someone to do her a favor and help her out where she couldn't pleasure herself, and the sight of it was enough to get all watching eyes to turn away, to find something else to focus on.

That endeavor lasted for a split-second, because the horrified scream that came from that side of the table drew everyone right back to looking. It was Maki screaming, the sound less high-pitched and more of a bellow than anything, and she was staring at Miu with a finger pointed down towards her spread legs. "I'm disgusted you're showing me this, because I definitely never had any interest in seeing your nasty snatch, but to show me it when it's so…actually gross, no thank you."

"I'm not _that_ gross, am I?" Miu feebly asked, before realizing that something wasn't quite right with what she was actively showing off, just on a feeling. She brought her legs back together and looked around at everyone, her black eye a distraction from the almost worried expression she was now wearing. "Um, I don't want to alarm everyone, but I don't think my sopping panties are because I'm turned on…"

The implication of what she was saying put an end to the disaster party very quickly, as everyone there was familiar enough with the different parts of pregnancy to know that when someone was as pregnant as Miu seemed to be, there was really only one reason that she could be experiencing what she was going through. There was a lot of frantic running around by those able-bodied enough to do so, and the ones who weren't quite physically up to all the running got to sit idly around, waiting to know what was going to happen before they put in the effort to do anything.

Or, at least, that was what it seemed like, but Kyoko was spending her time sitting in her chair listening to everyone's conversations, getting a good enough guess as to where they were going to go, who all was going, and other information to shoot a message to someone who she figured might be interested in knowing what was going on. She wasn't a snitch, but she distinctly heard at least one person say that they were going to let the authorities know what had happened regarding the black eye and the bleeding face of people who'd be rolling into medical centers very soon, and she wanted to make sure that all sides of the situation got represented fairly. This was something she told the men she had attended the party with, once everything had settled down and almost everyone had left, the three of them as the last people around. "It would be unwise for everyone to jump to Miu's side simply because it appeared her water broke due to the scuffle," she said, trying not to look at Makoto or Shuichi as she spoke. "I know that I didn't know any of these people until I walked in here, but I felt that letting her and her defenders get their way would be wrong."

"So you told someone to get the police involved on Kaito and Maki's side, huh?" Shuichi asked, checking to make sure the door to the dojo was locked (a difficult task, seeing as he was holding half of the clothing that had been left behind in the panicked departure, Makoto's arms full with the rest). "I'm not sure how well that will work out, given that he did throw the first punch, we all saw it, but it's worth a try."

"There was more going on than just that, and I know who can defend the decision for the attack." Kyoko looked at Makoto, who stared at her for a moment before nodding, understanding that she was referring to how he'd been watching their conversation before the fighting had started. "I want to see justice served how it needs to be, not a bunch of gossipy hens defending their flock leader."

"Miu is the last person I'd call the leader with them," Shuichi corrected, trying not to laugh at how wrong Kyoko was about that title, "but I'm with you. Kaito was defending someone who wasn't going to defend herself, which is how you know that she wasn't okay with being where she was. Not like you'd actually know that, either of you, and I guess that's where I can be of use to help their defense as well."

The ride to the hospital was filled with chatter about what had gone down and about how much of a mess the party as a whole had been. Shuichi apologized several times for dragging them into it all, and while Makoto didn't mind it too much because it had been an unusual dose of excitement in his life, Kyoko wished she'd never actually gone. It wasn't because of the drama, that was something she was amused by, but rather because she'd never wanted to spend time with so many other ladies in similar situations to herself and she would rather never do it again. It was telling that the ones she felt were most tolerable were the pair that weren't with child (and calling them tolerable was a struggle), yet she didn't want to burst Shuichi's bubble about having helped find a group of friends for her by saying that she had zero interest ever seeing any of them after that day.

When they arrived, they were met with just about everyone sitting in the main lobby, all waiting for them to get there before deciding where to go. "I don't know about you, but I'm more excited about seeing Miu and that baby than I am seeing a degenerate male who thought it was appropriate to hit her," Tenko said, still showing that she was completely on Miu's side in it all. "If that means I'm down here waiting all day and night, so be it."

"If my spell's worn off it might not be long at all," Himiko added, tugging on the hood of her kigurumi that she was still wearing over her head. "But I'm pretty sure she said once that the baby was turned around the wrong way and that's why he wasn't being born, so even without my magic helping it could still take some time."

"H-hey now, let's just hope everything's fine and it's not going to be some huge issue getting him out of her, she was beyond ready for him to be born!" After talking, Kaede craned her neck to look towards Shuichi, who was still standing with Kyoko and Makoto, and she grinned when she located him. "Hey, Shuichi, who do you think _we_ should go see first?"

He tensed up when she said his name, but gave the answer that was on his mind. "Honestly, I want to make sure that Kaito's not going to be leaving here in handcuffs because of any of you, so if we could go see him that would be great."

"Why would he be leaving in…oh, yeah, that's a thing that happened, isn't it?" Her head tilting back up, Kaede gave a pointed look towards the two dressed like tigers. "I can't believe you thought it would be a good idea to call the police on him, we could've just kept the whole fight thing secret!"

"It doesn't matter that someone called them on him," Kyoko interjected, not particularly wanting to hear anything escalate into an argument. "I've taken care of things and there shouldn't be any sorts of arrests today, police reports being filed certainly, but both sides will be listened to before anyone gets punished."

The loud, disappointed groan that came from Tenko was reason enough for Kyoko to reconsider finding her decent to talk to, but she wasn't given the chance to give her reason for why she so badly wanted to see someone getting punished. That was when Maki entered the group of people, looking angry as she came into everyone's view and shoved a pointed finger in Kaede's face. "You, you're the one who let her overtake your stupid party and ruin everything, what are you going to say to explain yourself?"

"I'm the one who has to explain myself?" Kaede questioned, her voice taking on a bit of hesitance with each word. "I don't know what there is to explain, she wanted to get to wear a costume for everyone before she lost her baby body and I didn't tell her no, I've explained this to you already haven't I?"

"She punched him hard enough to need stitches and bit him hard enough that they're giving him a bunch of shots just to be safe, and if it wasn't for you letting her get her damn way, he wouldn't have had to go in there for any of that wearing an inflatable costume." The way the anger in Maki's voice broke as she reached the end of her sentence let everyone who heard it know that she was more amused than anything at the absurdity of how they'd shown up there at the hospital. "Thankfully he was out of it by the time the cops showed up, but still."

While everyone else was finding it inside themselves to awkwardly laugh at what Maki said, Kaede was still shaken by how she'd been snapped at initially. "You can't _scare_ me like that!" she exclaimed, bringing both of her hands to rest over her heart. "I thought I was seriously getting blamed for Miu and Kaito fighting over you and I wasn't sure how I'd be able to handle that kind of blame!"

The awkward laughter slowly turned into genuine laughs as everyone started talking about what had happened and how, in the end, things turned out badly but no one was worse off for it. They were still all in various levels of costumes, some people had some new injuries to sport, and all of them ended up having to give their side of the story to the police to help build a case if one was necessary, but at the end of the day, everything was exactly as it needed to be. And that meant everyone getting to file into a cramped part of one of the upper floors later that day, to be allowed in to meet a child that none of them were particularly excited about, because him being born that day was another thing that just felt like it was meant to be that way.

Even though she had zero investment in the child at all, Kyoko decided she'd stick around to get to meet him, and found immediate amusement in her choice when she went in to find a baby that looked an awful lot like one of the men she'd gotten arrested for murder in the recent past. How that child was expected to be a genius when he was unintentionally fathered by one of the city's many murderers, she wasn't sure, but that bit of detective humor was enough to make the entire miserable day worth it.

* * *

**A/N: okay look let me explain myself. one, this was written back in June and I had no idea if/when I was ever going to post it. two, I was told to write whatever I wanted and I just kinda...went for it. and three, no I don't regret anything about this but this story is super...interesting and idk, I'm proud of it in some weird way?**


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